


Hot Tub Time Machine

by the_random_writer



Series: Movie Night [3]
Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Crack, Glam Rock, Idiots in Love, Insults, Light Angst, M/M, Memories, Movie Night, Moving On, Snark, Teasing, Television Watching, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-15 21:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14797958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: It's movie night in the Grady and Garrett household, and interesting conversations abound...Hoping to make this an ongoing thing - each new 'Movie Night' story will cover the boys watching a different movie.I'm not a fan of the chapter system, so will publish each story standalone within a series.This installment will make slightly more sense if you've seen the movie in question :-)





	Hot Tub Time Machine

Zane pressed the Power Off button; the music stopped and the screen went blank. He switched the source back to cable TV—the comforting sound of Anderson Cooper throwing shade at some politician filled the living room instead.

"That was crap," Ty announced, looking and sounding slightly irate.

"Wasn't the best use of our evening, was it?"

"Not even close. _And_ it made no fucking sense."

Zane gave a nonchalant shrug and threw the remote back onto the table. "I dunno. I can think of worse ways to explain time travel than a hot tub powered by an illegal Russian energy drink." Such as reading a diary page from the past, or having some freaky, time-jumping, genetic condition.

Ty scrunched his nose and shook his head. "No, not _that_."

"Then what?"

"The goddamn ending," Ty explained. "The rest of the movie was shitty and stupid, but the last five minutes were _totally_ fucked."

Zane didn't want to, but asked nonetheless—a husband's work was never done. "How so?"

Sadly, instead of letting it drop, Ty was all too willing to shed more critical light on the matter. "When they come back to the present day, they find out the dude who stayed behind in 1986 founded Google and Motley Crue, right?"

"Yeah?"

"But according to Wikipedia"—Ty paused to brandish his phone, which Zane had noticed him using during the movie—"Motley Crue was founded in 1981. And the song he sings in the video over the end credits was released in 1985."

Zane stifled a weary sigh. It wasn't the only continuity error he'd noticed—the film had been absolutely _riddled_ with them—but the story wasn't exactly an Oscar contender. "It's just a crappy movie, doll," he said, using his best Ty-whispering voice. "Don't overthink it."

Ty wasn't in a whispering mood. "Pointing out plotholes in movies is _not_ overthinking."

"What if it isn't a plothole at all?" Zane asked, half-wondering if this was a relationship risk he wanted to take. Plotholes meant logic, and as everyone and their housekeeper knew, Ty and logic weren't always the warmest and closest of friends.

"Lone Star, how the hell could what I just pointed out _not_ be a goddamn plothole?"

Time to put his thinking cap on, to not only lead the Horse Called Beaumont to water, but more importantly, to find a way to make the beast drink. "Maybe in the alternative timeline Lou created by staying behind, the original singer left the band, and Lou was the guy they hired to replace him," Zane proposed. "So, the video shown during the end credits is just him singing at a gig that happened sometime _after_ 1986."

Ty wasn't convinced. "I dunno, man. That seems like a _hell_ of a stretch."

"Not really. Big rock bands replace their members all the time."

"No they don't."

"Sure they do."

"Name _one_ ," Ty demanded.

Zane took a sip of his drink, briefly stalling for time. As it happened, Motley Crue _had_ actually changed its lead singer, but not until 1992. So, mentioning that would only add more fuel to the flames, and he wasn't wearing his fireproof pants. As he swallowed the last of his coke, inspiration finally struck. "How about Metallica?" he said. "They've gone through more bass guitar players than you've gone through hot men with guns."

"Doesn't count."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Cus nobody gives a flying fuck about the bass player. Metallica could hire the Queen of England to fill the position, have her march around the stage in her crown, and nobody would so much as blink."

A better answer was quick in coming. "Okay, then what about AC/DC?" Zane suggested next. "They've gone through a couple of singers."

"Yeah, all of them equally shit. Every goddamn song they sing sounds exactly the goddamn same."

"Hmm, yeah, cus Motley Crue are nothing if not icons of pure, artistic innovation."

"I never said the Crue were good. I just said your explanation for the ending of the movie _still_ makes no goddamn sense."

"But a time machine in a hot tub powered by an illegal Russian energy drink does?"

Ty nodded hard, making it clear this was a point on which he _absolutely_ wouldn't be moved. "The one time I drank three cans of Four Loko, I'm pretty sure I ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time, so yeah, for me, that part makes _perfect_ sense."

Zane frowned. "I don't remember you doing that."

"Was before we met."

"What happened?"

"Went out on the town with Jimmy and a couple of other Bureau guys, rolled home at two in the morning, decided it was the perfect time to clean the whole house from top to bottom."

Oh, man. That was as Ty-ish as even Ty could get. "Doesn't sound so bad. Cleaning the house isn't exactly a flogging offense."

"Was fine until I started outside, tried to power vacuum the lawn. Neighbours called the cops on me, took me almost an hour to persuade them not to take me downtown, _and_ I broke my vacuum cleaner." Ty scrunched his face, as if a broken vacuum cleaner was the worst of all possible fates, in the worst of all possible times.

Zane couldn't help but grin. "You're the reason Four Loko got banned, aren't you?" Then again, his own track record with the substance wasn't exactly squeaky clean. He'd long since learned the hard way that Four Loko and China White did _not_ agreeable bedfellows make…

"Probably one of 'em, yeah."

Zane set his empty glass on the table. "For the sake of my sanity and our marriage, I'm gonna cut this argument short, give up and accept your complaint. I agree there's no decent explanation for that concert scene at the end, and Hot Tub Time Machine _officially_ makes no fucking sense."

"So even you don't buy your shitty excuse."

"Not so much _don't_ as _can't_."

"The fuck are you talking about?"

Time to confess to his sins. "It means I know for a fact there's no way Lou could have been the singer at the concert in the end credits."

"How?"

"Cus I was at the concert in question."

A look of total and abject horror settled on his husband's face. "You went to a _Motley Crue_ concert?" Ty whispered, as if Zane had just announced that he liked to eat puppies and kittens for dinner.

"For the _Theatre of Pain_ tour at The Summit in Houston, back in the autumn of 1985."

"Oh, God," Ty whimpered, leaning forward to rest his head in his hands. "You used to be a Motley Crue fan. This is even worse than line dancing and puns."

"Jesus, Meow Mix, will you _relax_?" Zane griped. "The concert was for Becky, not me. She was into all kinds of glam rock bands, and she had a _serious_ thing for Nikki Six." As a general rule, he didn't like to dwell on the past, but the memory of his late wife singing along to _Home Sweet Home_ at the top of her (out of tune) lungs made him feel all warm inside and brought a nostalgic smile to his face.

Ty's lips twitched. "I would say she had terrible taste in men, but then I remembered she married you."

"Taste in men was more or less fine," Zane explained. "Taste in music was bordering on fucking dire."

"The things we do for love, huh?"

"Grady, you have _absolutely_ no fucking idea."

The twitch erupted into a full-on grin. "Go on, then," Ty coaxed. "What's the shittiest glam rock concert you ever sat through for her?"

"Not sure," Zane said, thinking back to his Texas years. "The Crue once. Whitesnake once. Poison _twice_." One particular memory pinged. "Don't suppose you remember a Swedish glam rock band called Europe?"

Ty frowned. "Vaguely, yeah."

"Not surprised, bit of a two-hit-wonder group. They played the Paramount Theatre in Austin, must have been in, oh, eighty-seven?" Or maybe in eighty-six—his memory wasn't the best.

"Jesus, Lone Star, in eighty-seven, I was _thirteen_. I'd've been _way_ too busy beating my meat to think about Swedish dudes with hair."

"Plus, you were still living in Bluefield, then," Zane added, trying to keep his face straight. "Your house probably didn't have electricity yet."

'Funny."

Zane flashed an apology grin. "But yeah, Europe was probably the worst band Becky ever made me go see."

"I would say you were a very tolerant boyfriend and spouse, but then I remember _she_ had to put up with your terrible puns, so it was probably a pretty fair trade."

"Except I don't think that's how it worked."

"The hell are you talking about?"

"I like to think my predilection for puns actually evolved as a means of defense. My way of coping with being forced to go to rock concerts which had more glitter and hair than _actual_ proper rock music." Another, beautiful (but slightly more naughty) memory surfaced. "Although, if I remember correctly, we decided to get a room in town once the concert was done instead of driving back to the ranch, so I did get _very_ thoroughly laid for my troubles."

"Seems fair."

"Worked for me." He didn't remember Becky complaining much, either.

Ty's features took on a slightly pensive cast—something more serious than a tale about getting laid was coming.

"Lone Star, can I ask you a question? A difficult one that you might not really want to answer?"

"Course you can. You're my husband, for Christ's sake. You can ask me anything."

Ty was silent for a few moments, then said, "What would you do, in Lou's place?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you were given the chance to go back to 1986, and live the last thirty-one years all over again, knowing what's supposed to happen and how your life's supposed to unfold, would you take it?"

Jesus. How in the ever-loving fuck should he answer a question like _that_? He had two options, both of them equally shit. Saying 'no' would imply his life was better with Becky dead, but saying 'yes' would imply he would rather be with Becky than Ty. 

His answer wasn't quick in coming, but for once, Ty seemed more than happy to wait. And in the end, there was only one response he could give.

"I wouldn't, no," he said, trying to look and sound as sure as he felt. "A lot of things have happened in the last thirty-one years that I wish I could undo, but if there's one thing the two of us have learned during the nine years we've been together, it's that, eventually, you have to move on with your life and leave the past in the past where it belongs." Memories threatened to overwhelm him—he paused to take a few calming breaths. "I loved Becky, and her death almost _killed_ me, but she's been gone for almost thirteen years, which means that, in my mind, she's something that _was_ , not something that _is._ They say you should never re-open old wounds, and I think that's what going back to 1986 would do." The more he spoke, the more he knew his answer was right. "And even if I could reset my life, go back in time to start with Becky all over again, I can't reset who I am inside now. I'm not her Zane anymore, and haven't been for a very long time. In a way, the Zane she knew and loved is just as dead and gone as she is. _He_ belongs in the past with her. _I_ belong here and now with you." He looked up, catching and holding Ty's gaze. "Does that make sense?"

"It does to me," Ty gently said.

Zane breathed a sigh of relief. "I take it that means you wouldn't want to start your life over, either?"

Ty shook his head. "I'd really like Eli not to be dead, but apart from that, I don't see the point." His expression turned brooding again. "God knows I've made a lot of mistakes over the years as well, hurt a lot of people who didn't deserve to be hurt, but fucking up and learning how to do better next time is part and parcel of what makes us human." He shrugged and sighed, chasing the mournful shadows away. "And however bad my life choices have been, in the end, those choices are what brought us together. Wouldn't change that for anything, babe. Would rather spend what's left of this messy and imperfect life with you than start a whole, new life with anyone else."

Zane's throat was suddenly very tight. "Same," was all he could bring himself to say.

"Although…"

"What?"

Ty flashed a rueful grin. "Don't suppose there's any chance I could go back to 1986 to steal my twelve-year-old bladder and knees?"


End file.
